The Eagles Nest

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11. Certain Little Gardens



It is wonderful how often grown-up people walk about the world with their eyes shut. Captain West thought himself decidedly an observant man. He was fond of his garden, and even worked in it for hours at a time; but he never noticed that within his domain there were sundry other little gardens, just as carefully tended, and exhibiting a much greater ingenuity of arrangement than his own. For instance, there was one within a few yards of the schoolroom window, just at the corner of the house, under the laburnum-tree. Here Betty was working hard one morning, when, having finished her lessons with unusual quickness, she was allowed out of the schoolroom half an hour before the others.

A more unpromising site for a garden it would have been difficult to imagine. All that the ordinary world saw were two stone slabs, that had something to do with lighting a cellar below the house. But the children had long ago discovered, that one stone being several inches higher than the other, water poured on it would rush like a miniature cascade to the lower level. This was by no means the only possibility of amusement that the stones afforded. A large crack ran down the centre of each, and these when properly blocked with mud at either end made two admirable lakes. There were other smaller cracks, in which the children from time to time planted a daisy or a laburnum seed. Once or twice they had been known to grow, which was distinctly encouraging.

This little pleasure-ground had lately suffered considerable neglect, owing to the number of exciting events that had occurred. Besides, when Madge was out of doors she liked larger and more energetic amusements. But Betty was devoted to arranging her little garden in new ways, and directly she found herself alone she began to work out a scheme for beautifying it that she had long had in her head. The lakes were carefully formed with some nice sticky handfuls of clay at either end to keep in the water. This had often been done before, but it was quite a new thing, and entirely Betty's own idea, to cover the mud banks with glittering fragments of gravel, so that they looked like rockeries. She also stuck bits of grass round the edges to do duty for rushes, and very well they looked. But the most happy thought of all was making imitation water-lilies out of nasturtium leaves. When that was done, Betty stopped to admire her work with very natural pride. It seemed almost as perfect as human skill could make it.

At that moment up came John. He had finished his lessons before Madge, who, it seemed, had got into difficulties over her sums, from which she was not likely to emerge until dinner-time. John admired the new arrangements exceedingly, and also contributed a suggestion to the effect that there should be a fleet on the lake.

"Yes, but one of our boats will fill up the whole lake," said Betty, who did not quite appreciate having her own arrangements interfered with by a new-comer.

John made no direct answer, but dipping his hand deep into his pocket, he drew out about a dozen nut-shells and deposited them on the stone.

Betty examined the heap carefully. "There isn't a single kernel left, not half a one!" she said in a tone of disappointment. "What's the good of bringing those?"

"Boats, don't you see?" explained John. And really the nut-shells, such of them at least as were not too utterly smashed, made excellent boats, in exact proportion to the size of the lake. When a little extra excitement was required, Betty scraped away the mud that blocked back the water on the upper stone, and a cataract rushed out, bearing the whole fleet with it, and plunged recklessly into the depths of the lower pool.

Once they adjourned for a short time to another little garden that had lately been planned out in the middle of a shrubbery. To approach it, one had first to cross a broad flower-border that edged the shrubbery. Theoretically the children always jumped this flower-bed, leaving no trace of their footsteps, but in practice, as it was rather wide, they usually alighted heavily in the middle of it. Many a broken geranium and crushed heliotrope testified to their unsuccessful efforts, and Captain West, having no clue to their proceedings, was often driven to wonder what charm--except naughtiness--there could be about jumping on the flower-beds. He had not penetrated into the middle of the shrubbery for years; never since the laurels and hollies had grown into a solid prickly barrier against the outer world. So he could not possibly guess that somewhere out of sight a weakly bush had been gradually choked to death by its more robust companions, and that the children on one of their voyages of discovery had noticed this, and decided that since the poor thing was nearly dead it would obviously be more sensible to pull it up and make a garden in its place. Of course, the ground was so full of the roots of trees that ordinary digging was quite out of the question; a spade (even if Madge stepped on it with both feet and all her weight) would not go in more than half an inch. But in the end the children very satisfactorily scratched up the ground for about a square yard with pointed sticks, and put in a row of primroses upside down, because they had been told that if planted in that position they would come up red. This experiment failed with the greatest regularity year after year in whatever corner of the garden it was tried. Yet both children and gardeners are such hopeful people, that when the two are combined one may expect to see absolutely impossible feats cheerfully embarked upon as often as the sun rises.

Betty and John did not go to this charming retreat empty-handed. The former had some plants torn up by the roots, the latter a half-filled watering-pot. The fact was that several small things had been left over after finishing the naval display, and it seemed a pity to waste them. Water, for instance, was always valuable, because there was a certain amount of difficulty about getting it. The gardener objected to their drawing off much from his pump, which was apt to run dry in hot weather, while if they went indoors to get a drop from a tap they were at once set upon by innumerable people ordering them not to make messes and wet their frocks. So when some water was left over from flooding the lake, it was proposed not to throw it away, but to carry it to the shrubbery garden, where there were several languishing plants. There was the inevitable little struggle for possession of the watering-pot; but Betty was not unreasonable, so she gave it up when John pointed out that she had the undivided enjoyment of it while he was at lessons. And in its place she carried two or three very drooping nasturtium plants, that had unfortunately come up by the roots while she was picking their leaves. They would do very well to plant in the shrubbery, where the sun could never manage to pierce the screen of overhanging boughs even at mid-day. All gardeners know that a hot sun has a very disastrous effect on newly-moved plants, especially if their roots are mostly torn off.

"I'll hold the watering-pot while you jump over the geranium-bed," said Betty. "You know we broke two last week, and Papa said if he caught--"

"Nonsense! It's only you girls with your skirts who break things," interrupted John, clutching his watering-pot tighter than ever, for he strongly suspected his sister of intending to wile it away from him. He jumped, the watering-pot was heavy, and the weight all on one side. Consequently he fell, and his fall was unusually disastrous, being marked by more than the ordinary number of crushed geraniums and scattered earth. Of course the water was all upset, principally into his boots: and Betty threw away her nasturtiums in disgust, for it was quite useless to plant them dry, and they had both been warned off the pump and the tap that very morning. There might easily have been some rather bitter reproaches at this point, but fortunately Madge was sent out to summon them to dinner.

"I want you to do something for me this afternoon," she said to Betty and John as they returned to the house. "Miss Thompson is going to take me to Churchbury shopping, and I think Lewis will be expecting me at the Eagle's Nest. I said something about it yesterday before I knew that I was going shopping."

"But why can't John and I go and talk to him?" answered Betty. "We aren't all going shopping."

"You don't think he will care to talk to little things like you?" laughed Madge. "Why, he is two years older than me even; but, of course, that isn't much. I only want you to tell him why I haven't come, and that we shall have the usual afternoon holiday on Saturday. Then you can come straight back, for I am sure he won't stop with you."

Since the day that Jack jumped over the wall Lewis had talked to the children several times, standing close under the tree, and keeping an anxious eye in the direction of Mrs. Howard's house all the while. Of course he could not climb up to play with them since the rope-ladder so mysteriously disappeared. There had been no explanation of that strange disappearance. At first the children feared that Barton had found their hiding-place, and recovered his missing property; but they soon made up their minds that this could not be the case, when the old man continued to meet them every day without any signs of anger. For when Barton suspected that they had been in mischief, he did not hesitate to scold them severely himself, and also complain to their father. They often got into trouble this way when he found them hunting the pigs too vigorously, or playing tricks with the milk-pails. He would certainly have made a great fuss about their borrowing his ropes without leave, and knotting them all over. So, as he said nothing, it was pretty certain that he knew nothing.

But though Lewis Brand was now completely cut off from the Eagle's Nest, being on a lower level by about a dozen feet than the children who were sitting in it, he contrived to tell them a wonderful number of stories about himself and the bad treatment which he suffered, speaking all the while in a loud whisper that was very impressive. In this way they heard, among other curious facts, that the gray-bearded man was the jailer of whose cruelties Lewis had already told them. The children were surprised at this, for the gray-bearded man had not looked either very powerful or very savage. But they accepted from Lewis the explanation that he was a hypocrite.